What to confirm before importing restaurant conveyor equipment from China: certification for your market, packing and shipping, installation scope, spare parts and after-sales response. A practical pre-order checklist. Most of the problems buyers hit are not manufacturing problems at all, and every one of them can be settled before the order is placed.

Buying conveyor equipment directly from a Chinese factory can cut capital cost substantially, and most of the problems buyers hit are not manufacturing problems. They are documentation, logistics and scope problems that could have been settled before the order was placed. This checklist covers what to agree in writing first.

1. Certification for your market

Establish which approvals your jurisdiction actually requires, and confirm the factory can supply the corresponding documentation rather than a photograph of someone else's certificate. In the European Union that generally means CE marking with a declaration of conformity. In the United States, buyers commonly look for UL or ETL listing for the electrical side and NSF recognition for food-contact surfaces.

Be aware that your local health authority may apply its own rules to open food display and cold holding, independently of electrical certification. Ask the authority, not only the supplier. Getting this wrong is expensive in a specific way: the equipment arrives, passes electrical inspection, and then cannot be licensed to serve food.

2. Voltage, frequency and plug standard

Confirm the supply voltage and frequency at your site and specify the machine to match. Equipment built for 220 V/50 Hz will not run on a 110 V/60 Hz supply without a transformer, and motors and control systems are not interchangeable between the two. This is the single most common specification error on exported equipment, and it is entirely avoidable.

3. Packing and shipping

Conveyor equipment is long, awkward and largely hollow, which means it is vulnerable to both impact and crushing. Ask how the track sections are crated, whether the counter surfaces are protected against scratching, and how the crate is braced internally. Confirm whether the quotation is EXW, FOB or CIF, because the difference is your freight forwarder's problem or yours.

Ask for the packing list and crate dimensions before shipment so your forwarder can quote realistically, and check whether your market applies anti-dumping or additional duties to the relevant HS code. Also confirm whether installation tooling or consumables are included in the crate or have to be sourced locally.

4. Installation scope

This is where quotations diverge most. A low price frequently covers delivery of crates and nothing else. Before you sign, get in writing whether the price includes track levelling, horizontal calibration, a loaded run test, electrical connection by a licensed electrician, staff training, and removal of packing material.

Insist on a loaded run test at handover. An unloaded belt proves the motor turns; it does not prove the track is level, the joints are true, or the system behaves under weight. See installed projects.

5. Spare parts and proprietary components

Ask which components are standard catalogued items and which are made only by the factory. If a motor, controller or belt can only be replaced through the original supplier, your running cost is set by that supplier for the life of the machine. Confirm the warranty split between core components and consumables — motors and controllers versus belts, platters and chains — and get the periods in writing.

Order a spare parts kit with the machine. Freight on a small parts shipment often costs more than the parts, and waiting three weeks for a belt is a closed dining room.

6. After-sales response

Agree what happens when something fails: response time, how the diagnosis is carried out, who pays for the visit, and whether support is available in your time zone and language. Ask for the name of a reference customer in your region and call them. A supplier who will not give you a reference is telling you something.

7. Documentation to request before payment

Ask for the dimensioned layout drawing, the electrical single-line diagram, the certificate pack, the packing list, the installation schedule and the warranty terms, and check that the drawings match the machine you are being quoted for. Discrepancies between the drawing and the quotation are a reliable early warning sign.

Yuyang has exported restaurant conveyor equipment to more than 60 countries since 2008 and supplies layout drawings, certificate packs and installation documentation with every order. About our factory · Equipment range.